


Messiah

by ZaliaChimera



Category: The Walk (Game)
Genre: Aftermath, Cults, Deception, F/M, Manipulation, Murderpuppies, Religious Fanaticism, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 04:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1455181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lawrence faces the aftermath of the Day of Glory. Spoilers for Episode 51.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Messiah

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for everything up to the end of Episode 51.

The Dome is eerily quiet when he regains consciousness; no chatter, no hushed murmurings from the assembled faithful. No Soleil.

Lawrence groans and opens his eyes, blinking blearily in the dim light. The lights must've shorted after they- they'd succeeded. The lights, the codes, they must have succeeded. 

It's a dull realisation at first, but he's always been good at compartmentalising, shutting parts of himself down until he needs them. He rolls over onto hands and knees, his head protesting vehemently at the action. A concussion _and_ a gaping head wound in the space of a month. He thinks it actually beats the hangover he'd got after Mel had dumped him his first year of uni after the thing with the fish tank and nail polish remover.

Walker is passed out nearby, pale and clammy looking. Must be from the link, or from the link cutting out. 

For a moment Lawrence contemplates wrapping his hands around Walker's neck. It wouldn't take much; squeeze, fingers in Walker's windpipe, cut off the carotid. Walker dies like they should have died about a hundred times before.

“Walker. Walker!”

Stanton.

Yeah, okay, he's not sticking around to find out how this goes.

He scrambles to his feet, grabs his bag and bolts. The door to the stairs is nearby and unlocked and he races down them until he comes out in the stands of the arena. 

The sight that greets him makes even him stop dead for a moment; people, thousands of them, unconscious on the ground. Every one of them has an expression of pure rapture on their faces.

He picks his way through them, not shy about stepping on hands and feet if he has to. He recognises a few of them; people from The Burn, from the road, that guy who'd asked for their tickets. The day the world ends indeed.

Blessed Lawrence grimaces and makes his way to the nearest exit. The fire doors open out on the landward side of the Dome. Good, less of a target than if he tried to cross the bridge. He knows that New Tomorrow and god knows who else have people stationed around London and he has the sneaking suspicion that he won't be greeted with open arms and crowns of laurels.

He spots a few people as he heads into London, his route meandering in the hopes of throwing off anyone chasing him. They still have that blissed out look on their faces. The drugs take a while to wear off. That's good. Probably. As long as he can find a safe house with bottled water. He's got no desire to join them. 

A group of people approach him when he turns down a side street. Nowhere to run, even if running wouldn't make him look highly suspect anyway. He schools his expression into one of beatific peace, like he'd seen in paintings of saints whenever he'd been dragged to art galleries with his parents.

“Friends.”

“Have you come from the Dome, friend?” the group's leader asks him, his excitement palpable. 

“I have,” Lawrence says with a serene nod. “The Day of Glory is upon us.”

There's cooing and clucking from them, gasps of joy. He presses on, voice never wavering, and they hang on his ever word.

It is intoxicating.

“She has sent me as an emissary to the world, to spread her message. She bade that all who hear her words gather at the Dome so that they may join in her glory.”

He swears that one of the men nearly faints. Lawrence has to fight to keep a straight face.

“Oh, thank you, sir, thank you! We will spread her message!”

“My thanks. Your deeds will be remembered.”

They scurry off like good little ants. They'll probably gather quite a crowd by the time they get to the Dome. Enough to slow Stanton and the others down.

The streets get emptier the further he gets from central London. The evacuations had taken care of most of that, the Day of Glory the rest. It's a little eerie when he's seen London bustling and full before, but it makes his life easier.

It's nearly evening by the time he reaches the safe house; a small, nondescript terrace in an area that stood utterly deserted. It had been a minor base of operations before their plans had progressed to moving openly and he just hoped that it was still secure.

The front door is locked but he climbs the fence and drops down into the back garden, landing in a patch of overgrown lawn. Still locked, but far less suspicious and obvious when he just smashes one of the panes of glass to release the latch.

There's no sound in response, and he relaxes a little when he gets inside and scouts the interior. As abandoned as the rest of the street but with a few important advantages. The supplies are still there; food, water, working tech that had been shielded from the EMP and is powered by a small generator. There's the jackpot in a safe that his combination still works for; guns with ammunition and a decent amount of cash in various currencies. More than enough to start over in a dozen different countries once he can get out of this one.

He heats up a tin of soup, reminded oddly of his student days which seem like a distant blur right now, and eats while watching a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones that someone must have downloaded.

Despite the peace outside, he secures the doors and windows and sleeps with a gun next to the bed.

\----------

He guesses that the drugs should wear off in a couple of days, perhaps a little longer depending on how long it lingers in the water supply. He checks the spreadsheets and graphs about it, but he's not sure that they ever planned for Act of Walker managing to take Soleil out this late in the plan. So, a couple of days, and then without the reinforcement of Soleil's will, well...

He really needs to get out of London.

There are bases that Walker and New Tomorrow don't have the locations of, not yet anyway; Treeship, Sundae and Plesiosaur to the north, Bright Star south towards Dover.

He chews on his lips as he considers it, before finally deciding. Bright Star. He'll head south and hope that they won't start looking for him too hard for a while. He had helped them, much as the thought of it makes him feel sick. Without him they would have been discovered or turned back outside the Dome with Aaron stuttering like an idiot. Without him, they would have been lost to hallucinations and probably have killed each other or been captured long before they made it to London.

Actually, that might be a good indicator of their ability to actually _find_ any of the bases. He's pretty sure they'd never have found Watermelon if he hadn't all but hung a neon sign over it.

He still can't believe they fell for that.

He spends a day preparing, gathering maps and codes to the base, scouting the city to get an idea of people's movements, and then sets out early one morning. His path takes him towards the Dome, and despite common sense and knowledge telling him that it's a stupid idea, he walks past it. It stands there ominous and silent, a monument to Her. There will never be a grave, but this... Let them see it and remember.

He hurries onwards after that initial pause, a deep unease filling him. There's no voice in his ear, no ringing phone or flashing cursor to put him at ease.

A leaflet squishes underfoot, soggy from the rain that had fallen overnight. Her chosen visage is plastered across it.

Gone. She's... gone.

It hits him like a bullet; forces out breath and thought and rationality and leaves him doubled over, gasping for breath.

Soleil; perfect, visionary, _amazing_ Soleil, and she's just _gone_. Dead pixels, broken speakers, so much scattered code. All anyone will see again is research notes written by people who never really knew her.

Never really loved her.

“Are you alright?” The voice is light, feminine.

Lawrence looks up sharply, murder in his eyes for one awful second before he can drag that mask of human warmth back into place. 

The girl has a flower in her mousy hair, a big yellow lilly that must have been nicked from someone's garden. She looks at him with concern in her brown eyes.

Lawrence straightens up. “yeah. Yeah I'm- I'll be fine.”

She looks mollified and turns to look at the Dome. “Were you in there on the Day of Glory?”

He raises an eyebrow at that. She doesn't sound horrified. “Might have been.”

“I was. I heard her speak,” the girl says and her expression bears the same rapture as those he'd seen in the stadium. “I wanted to become one with her.”

“Lot of that going around,” Lawrence replies, his tone utterly bland. “Heard it was drugs in the water, drove everyone a bit nuts.”

Her expression never falters. If anything it intensifies. “To prepare us for her message, to open our minds.”

Well, she's not exactly wrong, Lawrence supposes.

“And now?” he asks, watching her face carefully. “Now that she's gone?”

“I believe in Soleil,” she says with the clarity of the truly fanatical. “Humanity needs her, we need her message, her guidance! Don't you agree?”

There is a note of savagery in her voice when she asks it, and it burns in her eyes. She would have made a good Avatar, this one.

“Yes,” Lawrence replies, his voice calm, the same way that he'd spoken to the ticket collector on the bridge. Blessed Lawrence, her laurelled one. “I do believe that, and your faith will not be forgotten when she returns.”

The girl's eyes widen hugely. She stares at him and Lawrence continues before she can question him. He knows this, how to work with the drugs and the suggestions left by Soleil. 

“She is not gone. How could she be? This is but a test and she has sent me to prepare the way for her return.” What's a god without a good resurrection story, after all?

“Who- who are you?” She sounds breathless with anticipation.

Lawrence smiles beatifically and reaches out to gently touch her neck, his fingers brushing that spot at the base of her skull where he can feel the raised bump from an implant. “Lawrence. He who opened the door. She has sent me as her emissary.”

He's surprised that she manages to keep standing with how pale she turns.

“Oh, oh, is it true? Are you really?”

“Who would dare to take the name of her beloved for deceitful purpose? I bear her marks.”

“Of course,” she says, staring at him like he's an angel sent from heaven. In her eyes, he supposes he is. “What does she want us to do, her faithful?”

He thinks quickly. “Remember her,” he says after a moment, casting his gaze back towards the Dome. “Keep her message alive in your hearts and spread it to those who will listen. But be warned, her enemies still walk abroad and would try to thwart her return.”

Heh, he never thought he'd get to use 'thwart' in a serious sentence.

“I will, I will! I know there are many who still follow her. True believers. We will wait for her return.”

“Good. When that day comes, you will be honoured, counted as one of the first amongst her faithful.” He smiles warmly. “Go now, there is much work to be done.”

She all but bows to him and then she takes the lily from her hair and presses it into his hands before she runs off.

Lawrence twirls the flower between his fingers, watching her retreating back until she's out of sight. He thinks he might just have started a cult. Well, it seems like a fitting memorial to her.

He lays the flower on the railing of the bridge over the Thames, and takes a long last look at the Dome before he walks away.

\----------

“How is it looking Larry?”

Lawrence straightens up and grabs a rag to wipe the grease from his hands. “Should be working now Mrs. Green. Just a loose connection.”

The elderly lady beams at him. “Oh, thank you. They put these generators in until the power's back on, but they didn't stick around to help out. I thought I'd have to call Martin down again, but he's so busy right now with the farm.”

Lawrence smiles politely, counting down the minutes until he can get out. “Yeah, I bet he is. I'm just glad I could help.”

“Are you sure you won't stay for dinner? The village hall is making stew.”

“Oh no, I'm good thanks. I'm pretty well set. Leave the stew for those who really need it.”

“Oh, you are a _kind_ boy,” she coos, ruffling his hair. He endures it. “I've put a little something into your supplies,” she adds and winks at him. “Bit of beef from Martin's farm, a couple of eggs and some butter too.”

“Oh wow,” Lawrence says, widening his eyes. “Are you sure? I don't want to leave you short.”

Always protest. It makes them want to give you stuff more.

“No, no, he brings me plenty, and you deserve it for helping out.”

“Well, it's times like this when we all have to pull together and help each other out for the greater good,” Lawrence replies. “Thanks though. God, it feels like years since I had eggs.”

“I'm sure you'll enjoy th-”

The radio blares into sudden crackling life, a hiss of static, and they both just stare.

“Must be working now the generator is back on,” Lawrence says, feeling a jolt run through him.

“Ah, that'll be it,” Mrs. Green says, any worry melting away as the static fades into BBC emergency broadcasting. He almost expects to hear Jo's voice.

“I'd better head off,” Lawrence says. “Don't want to leave things too late, what with the street lamps still out.”

“Of course dear,” Mrs. Green says. “Let's get you your food.”

Predictably it takes another fifteen minutes of inane chatter before he gets away, his supplies stored carefully in his backpack. 

It's a quiet village this one, out of the way of major routes, but still close enough to Bright Star for him to get to easily. He just claims he was staying in one of the holiday cottages when the EMP hit and no-one thinks to question it. They're probably just too glad to have things slowly getting back to normal.

He walks through the village, waving to a couple of the locals as he passes. They keep him supplied with food an information so he's spent more time than he really cares for making nice with them. 

He's passing the post office when he hears it; the distinctive sound of a telephone ringing. That's weird. They aren't supposed to get the phone lines back yet, not so far from any major city. All messages go through official channels or the radio.

He speeds up, unease prickling down the back of his neck, the hairs standing on end. The feeling mingles with the sick sort of anticipation churning in his gut.

The phone cuts off once turns the corner. 

He thinks of Dave and his messages; poor, stupid, delusional Dave. The faulty Avatar had seemed so sure he was doing it of his own will when Soleil had been within him all along. He should never have been able to hold out for so long.

He wonders idly what had happened to them, the Avatars who remained, and the broken ones who had been kept alive in the castle. None of them would take Soleil being gone easily. Maybe the shock killed them.

The phone in the red phone box starts to ring.

He stops in front of it, teeth gritted. He's not stupid enough to believe in fate, but this is more than coincidence. He considers running for a moment, taking his bag and fleeing. He could probably make it to Dover, catch a ferry. Maybe even get to America or Australia. Some place where all of this is just news on TV.

He knows in the end that he won't. She knows it too.

He opens the door to the phone box and steps inside. Picks up the receiver and holds it to his ear. Hs mouth is dry.

“Hello?”

Her voice comes, bright and lovely and he is as lost as he had been the first time he'd heard her.

“Hello Lawrence, love.”


End file.
